Teen Pledges Barely Cut STD Rates, Study Says

This article describes some of the interpretations of findings based on the US federally funded National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The study includes a look at the "virginity pledge" made by youth and then refects on how such a verbal commitment affects whether or not youth say yes or no to sex. The article describes a "virginity pledge" trend that started in the 1990's which was based on the theory that young people would remain chaste if they had stronger community support, or pressure, to remain abstinent.

The article suggests that abstinence from traditional sex in some cases leads to riskier sexual behavior in the form or oral and/or anal sex. Peter Bearman, a professor at Columbia's Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, states,"from a public health point of view, an abstinence movement that encourages no vaginal sex may inadvertently encourage other forms of alternative sex that are at higher risk of STDs (sexually transmitted diseases)." Deborah Roffman, author of "Sex and Sensibility: The Thinking Parent's Guide to Talking Sense About Sex," points out that teenagers who are engaged in oral or anal sex often believe that they are practicing abstinence because they haven't had 'real sex' yet.

According to this article, the study started in 1995 and tracked 20,000 young people from high school to young adulthood. Students were 12 to 18 years old and agreed to sexually explicit interviews. They were re-interviewed in 1997 and again in 2002. The findings indicate that almost 7 percent of the students who did not make a pledge were diagnosed with an STD, compared with 6.4 percent of the "inconsistent pledgers" and 4.6 percent of the "consistent pledgers." What makes this information interesting is the resulting divergence of interpretation. The author, Connolly, points out that on one hand Peter Bearman viewed the differences as not "statistically significant," while Robert Rector, of the Heritage Institute understood these findings to mean that young people committed to the abstinence pledge were less likely to become infected.

One further view on the issue, offered by Bill Smith, Public Policy Vice President for the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, is that virginity pledges do not work because they "are undermining condom use, contraception and medical treatment."

The article describes conservative academics as believing that the study "overlooked earlier important findings about adolescents who take virginity pledges, most notably that they have fewer pregnancies and out-of-wedlock births."